


A Curséd Child

by MissWoodhouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: Festering Ableism, Is it Pyromania or Just Deserts?, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of the Most Damning Kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9220748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissWoodhouse/pseuds/MissWoodhouse
Summary: When Richard was born, he had his teeth before his eyes.  Or at least that’s what George says, though Richard isn’t quite sure what it’s supposed to mean.When your mother turns up at the orphanage one night and delivers you – not like the postman, but actually delivers you, then and there – there is little doubt in anyone’s minds.





	1. A Portrait of King Richard III

**Author's Note:**

> Because my mom kept pronouncing the title of the Harry Potter play like it was something Shakespeare wrote.
> 
> And then I had to explore the difference between accursed and magically cursed.

When Richard was born, he had his teeth before his eyes. Or at least that’s what George says, though Richard isn’t quite sure what it’s supposed to mean. George was probably too young to remember anyway. Probably.

 

Edmund was older, and he always said the midwives cried out in horror when Richard first emerged, foot-first and crooked-backed. And that part must be true, or else Edmund would have been lying, and Richard mustn’t speak ill of the dead to say so. He wouldn’t dare.

 

Lancaster, locked in the Tower with nothing to do but pray, says the owls shrieked, the sky went black, and a storm arose as all the world mourned Richard’s birth. How’s that for holy? Richard is almost glad of the orders to stab him, after that.

 

And Edward? Perhaps that hurts most of all. When George and Warwick rumor that Edward is not his father’s son, Edward laughs and turns to Richard – the only one left at his side – sniggering, “I thought we all knew the twisted bastard to be you.” Richard forces the shadow of a smile and turns away, but the King isn’t done. “Who’d have thought when I saw only three suns in the sky at Wakefield, that the black sheep of the litter should in fact be George?”

 

The next time he visits his mother, Richard finds the portrait of his father, his namesake, and stares at it for hours. Aren’t I the one who looks the most like him? As if she can read his thoughts, Mother answers, “A pity, isn’t it, that his glass should be so warped?”

 

Mother likes Edward, she mourns Edmund, she loves her George, but Richard? She’s never cared a whit. She calls him her grievous burden. Is it because he’s the youngest? Because he’s broken? Because he’s wrong?

 

His wife despises him. Curses him. Cursed their son to death for vengeance. As children, he feared she’d marry him for pity, but this is so much worse.

 

His nephews think him some sort of monster – Uncle Richard twisted in body and in soul. They run from him in fright, cower behind their Uncles Rivers, whose whispers seem to only feed the fire.

 

Loyaulté me lie – but when everyone has spat upon your loyalty, who are you bound to but yourself? After all, when you’ve been cast as the devil incarnate, what other role is there to play?

 

Somewhere down the centuries, Sir Thomas More laughs.


	2. The Evolution of a Dark Lord

When your mother turns up at the orphanage one night and delivers you – not like the postman, but actually delivers you, then and there – there is little doubt in anyone’s minds. You are a bastard. Orphan. Son of a whore.

 

And there’s no pretending. None of the foolish hopes and childish imaginings of those fortunate enough to be dumped anonymously on the doorstep in a milk crate, who can at least dream of being a prince or a duchess in disguise. Not even the salvageable respectability of being deposited in a black handbag by a station master or a lady who might possibly have been a starving widow or your aunt.

 

No, Tom is a bastard, the worst sort of foundling. And, as Matron is kind enough to remind him, that means that he is a lost cause. No matter what he does, he’s going straight to hell for all eternity.

 

Things start going bump in the night pretty quickly after that. Right around the age he begins to understand what ‘hell’ and ‘eternity’ mean.

 

And really, the first time it isn’t his fault when Matron’s wig catches fire without anyone touching it. And the second time it’s only a small fire because he thought it would make the other children laugh at someone who wasn’t him.

 

The third thing he sets on fire is the Matron’s switch.

 

The other kids stop teasing him about his mother, but they avoid him instead, and it isn’t much better. [It isn’t _any_ better really, but he can’t let himself think it.]

 

All he can think of is that short, sharp thrill of retribution when the wig caught fire and Matron shrieked. It plays over and over in his mind like a loop of film from their trip to the cinema. He thinks it’s closest thing to happiness he’s ever felt. The next time one of the kids pranks him on a dare, Tom lets loose.

 

\---

 

Dumbledore dislikes him from the start. So do the other Slytherins, when he turns up with a muggly old name like Riddle. If he can’t amass friends, he’s a wizard – if you’ll forgive the expression – at amassing power.

 

So maybe he wasn’t dropped off in disguise at the orphanage as an infant. He’ll create himself a new line of title. Lord Vol de Mort.

 

They say children borne of a love potion can’t experience love, but have children borne of a love potion ever received it? If you can’t have love, Tom reasons, then the next best thing is fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Any more fictional villains anyone wants a backstory for?


End file.
